Catching the Wind(80)

“That’s because Janice didn’t tell anyone about her. In fact, she tried to kill her.”

Quenby shuddered. “Why would she try to kill her daughter?”

Alexander glanced out the window as a couple clothed in matching tennis outfits walked by. “Janice didn’t work with just anybody in Germany, you see. She collaborated with Rosalind’s father. The man who became my grandfather.”

Quenby blinked, stunned. “Lady Ricker had a lover in Germany?”

He nodded. “She and Oskar met when she was touring in Europe, while she was still married to her first husband. She became a devout, albeit secret, Fascist who was focused on helping Oskar first and then Hitler and the Third Reich at any cost. Unfortunately, when Rosalind returned to England, she knew too much. My grandmother couldn’t risk having anyone find out what she was doing.”

“How did Lady Ricker and Oskar communicate?” Lucas asked.

“Through a wireless.”

“And perhaps through the letters.” She told him what they’d found under the floor of the Mill House. “Brigitte believed the letters were coded.”

This time he looked stunned. “I didn’t think anyone else knew about Brigitte.”



Foamy waves lapped the beach outside Jacksonville as Quenby buried her toes in the warm sand, her jacket doubling as a towel underneath her. Lucas leaned back on his elbows beside her, bare feet crossed over his jeans.

Two boys raced through the surf in front of them, battling the string of a ladybug kite that dipped toward the water. The older boy pulled back on the string before it clipped a wave, and the kite soared again in the breeze.

Over tea and sandwiches, Alexander had told them what happened after Rosalind arrived at the Mill House and then after Eddie Terrell died. How she’d tried to fake her own death and left her daughter with Brigitte. Rosalind had followed Brigitte and the baby, he said, until they reached a village nearby. Then she ran north and folded herself into the crowds of London. After Lady Ricker’s death, Rosalind had embraced life as a new woman, released from the chains of being the daughter of a German officer and an American aristocrat turned British. After joining the theater, she’d married a man her mother would never consider respectable. In a few years, Rosalind didn’t consider him respectable either, but she stayed in the marriage for a decade before she relocated herself and their son to California.

Rosalind had passed away five years ago, but before she died, Alexander had pressed her to tell him all of her story. She talked at length about the theater, the costumes and glamour and opening nights, but he said he wanted to know about the years before the West End.

Finally she told him about the Rickers. About her mum and the safe house and about Brigitte. Brigitte, his mother had told him, was a hostage as well, but if Rosalind knew where she’d gone after the war, she never told her son.

Rosalind never met her half sister or half brother—Anthony Ricker had preceded Rosalind to the grave, and she had no desire to meet Louise. After his mother’s death, Alexander connected with his aunt. In fact, after Quenby e-mailed her, Mrs. McMann was the one who’d called him, warning him not to talk with her, but Alexander said he’d never seen eye to eye with his aunt. In small part, he wanted redemption for his mother. To tell the world that she was an overcomer in spite of what Lady Ricker had tried to do.

Neither Lucas nor Quenby told Alexander they were searching for Brigitte. But if they found what happened to her, perhaps they would find Rosalind’s daughter as well. She and Alexander could meet at last.

Quenby asked Alexander if Rosalind had any regrets about leaving her daughter, but if she had, she’d never told him. He said she’d left her baby behind because she thought Brigitte could take better care of her. And if Lady Ricker had found Rosalind and the child, she would have killed them both.

Or at least, that’s what Rosalind thought. Somewhere in her mind, perhaps polished and justified over the years, she’d come to the conclusion that she had done what was best under the circumstances.

Quenby nudged Lucas’s leg, and he glanced over at her. He looked so handsome, lying on the sand. Eye candy was what Chandler would call him. Anyone else on the beach would probably think he was full of himself in his confidence. She’d certainly thought, in her own insecurity, that he was arrogant when they first met, but now she wondered if he hadn’t trusted her, like she hadn’t trusted him.

She’d seen far past his facade in their time together and had come to appreciate much more than his features. He was a man who spoke his mind about his family, his doubts, his faith. A man who seemed to want what was best for her.

She took the envelope containing Mr. Knight’s file from her handbag. “I think I’m finally going to open it.”

He sat up. “And you need some space?”

“For just a few minutes.”

He didn’t look irritated at her request. In fact, it seemed that he understood.

“I won’t go far,” Lucas said as he leaned toward her. “Call me when you’re ready.”

When he kissed her cheek this time, there was no awkwardness between them. One friend caring for another friend.

Then he left her.

The children before her laughed as they flew their ladybug kite, and she flashed back to her Dumbo ride again. Back then, with her mother watching, she’d felt as if she really could fly.